"For many years, these works have inspired audiences around the world by conveying values such as courage, friendship and perseverance."

"Because of this, many fans feel concerned when images from these works appear to be used in political or military contexts that may differ from the intentions of the original creators or rights holders. This petition seeks to convey the voices of fans who, precisely because Japanese manga and anime are so widely loved around the world, hope that their cultural value and context will be respected."

Says an online petition seeking an end to the use of anime in political satire, quoted in "Trump draws anger in Japan with ‘disrespectful’ cartoon fakes/Fans of anime have called for action against the US president, who posts AI-generated clips of himself as their comic-book heroes" (London Times).

I'll just express my opinion in blog tags: "free speech" and "lawsuits I hope will fail."

This made me think of the old Walt Disney Productions v. Air Pirates case. Wikipedia:

Afroman tells his own story: "My proof's on the internet."

For a quick read, go here: "Afroman found not liable in bizarre defamation case brought by Ohio cops who raided his home" (NY Post): "The hip hop star wrote the satirical song 'Lemon Pound Cake' and made a music video with real footage of the raid taken from his home surveillance cameras to raise money for property damage caused during the search, he has said. Seven cops with the sheriff’s office then sued him in March 2023, alleging the music video defamed them, invaded their constitutional privacy, and was an intentional infliction of emotional distress...."

Here's penguinz0 with clips from the trial and mockery of the plaintiffs for their Streisand effect problem:

Here's Afroman's impressive testimony.

Here's "Lemon Pound Cake," one of the songs that led to the lawsuit, with the security camera footage of the cop's cake double-take:

"But a recent tragedy-exploiting television series about John F. Kennedy Jr. and Carolyn Bessette features a character using my name and presents her as me."

Writes Daryl Hannah, in the NYT.

The choice to portray her as irritating, self-absorbed, whiny and inappropriate was no accident. In discussing the show, “Love Story,” one of its producers explained: “Given how much we’re rooting for John and Carolyn, Daryl Hannah occupies a space where she’s an adversary to what you want narratively in the story.” Storytelling requires tension. It often requires an obstacle. But a real, living person is not a narrative device. 

There is also a gendered dimension to this thinking. Popular culture has long elevated certain women by portraying others as rivals, obstacles or villains. Isn’t it textbook misogyny to tear down one woman in order to build up another?... 

I have never used cocaine.... I have never desecrated any family heirloom.... I never compared Jacqueline Onassis’ death to a dog’s....

Trump sought to influence Bill Maher and he's now going to complain that he didn't get as much favorable press/comedy as he thinks — or pretends to think — he deserves.

"Sometimes in life you waste time! T.V. Host Bill Maher asked to have dinner with me through one of his friends, also a friend of mine, and I agreed," said Trump (at Truth Social).

He came into the famed Oval Office much different than I thought he would be. He was extremely nervous, had ZERO confidence in himself and, to soothe his nerves, immediately, within seconds, asked for a "Vodka Tonic." He said to me, "I’ve never felt like this before, I’m actually scared." In one respect, it was somewhat endearing!"

Trump seems to enjoy diminishing Maher, but I suspect Maher adopted this "little me" pose to disarm Trump. Obviously, Maher was bullshitting. There's no one who has never been scared. It's a joke. He's a comedian. And so is Trump.

Trump continues:

"... I’m an asshole. Much like Sacha Baron Cohen is an asshole. Although unlike Sacha, I labour under no illusions about my assholeishness..."

"... and am fully resigned to my status. Sacha, on the other hand, is so sure that he is not an asshole that his 'representatives' have been trying to stop publication of a memoir by the Australian actress Rebel Wilson in which she claims that he is one. It’s classic Hollywood. Just the sort of classy bantz Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn got up to. Indeed, Wilson claims that Baron Cohen is more than just an asshole. She claims he is a 'massive asshole.' Which, to be fair, is no laughing matter. I think I am right in saying I am widely perceived only as 'a bit of an arsehole' (to anglicise the trope).... This story has perhaps gained the traction it has because of Wilson’s initial decision not to name Baron Cohen, but merely to reveal that her forthcoming memoir would contain tales of 'an asshole' with whom she once worked, followed by the later revelation that 'now the asshole is trying to threaten me … He’s hired lawyers … but the book WILL come out,' before finally revealing: 'The asshole that I am talking about in one chapter of my book is: Sacha Baron Cohen.'"

Writes Giles Coren, in "The real Sacha Baron Cohen has always been on show/Rebel Wilson may be right about the Borat creator, but being an ‘asshole’ is part of what makes him a comedy great" (London Times).

I'm giving this my "Streisand effect" tag!

"Streisand effect" is what I said when I saw these 2 stories featured at Memeorandum this morning.

Here:

 

And I now see it's what Elon Musk was saying last night:

Definitely world champion Streisand Effect! This is being covered almost everywhere on Earth.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 3, 2023

I watched the video yesterday, and I'm laughing at "the vicious and intellectually dull Matt Walsh." Walsh is using a style of deadpan interviewing that disarms interviewees because they might assume he's intellectually dull, but that's not an intellectually dull thing to do. It's intellectually dull to think it's intellectually dull.

AND: From "Musk’s response to an anti-trans video sparks 24 hours of chaos at Twitter/A conservative pressure movement built against Twitter's CEO, resulting in high-level departures from the company":

"Descriptions of 'Spare' as 'pure chaos,' TMI or the lament of a privileged White man oversimplify the book...."

"Harry’s memoir sweeps in: one man’s singular journey from schoolboy to soldier to married father; a love letter to a lost mother, cast in the grief of a 12-year-old boy; an indictment of a family with resources to care for two wounded children — but no apparent will or concern to do so; a love-struck man’s celebration of his wife. 'Spare' is no literary masterpiece (for your own sake, skip the multi-chapter talk of his frostbitten todger). In time, Harry might regret sharing so much.... Harry accuses his stepmother, Camilla, soon to be crowned queen, of spreading negative reports about him amid efforts to improve her public image. He recounts speaking to his brother about their father’s efforts to promote himself at their expense. Think about that. A lot of Americans who were tiring of Harry and Meghan will likely find elements of Harry’s story to respect or even lament....."

Writes Autumn Brewington, in "Post Elizabeth: To understand Prince Harry’s book, you need to know 5 things" (WaPo). 

About that todger (don't tell me what to skip!):

The notion that Twitter's the place to go to see what's happening — destroyed by Twitter.

I would love to read an essay on the ever-morphing definition of misinformation/disinformation. Seems that it has gone from being a description of Holocaust denial/anti-vax to a word to tag any content that seems to help the political right? https://t.co/jdwLu2Uxdv

— Bari Weiss (@bariweiss) October 15, 2020

You're seeing the immense, unchallengeable, unaccountable power of Silicon Valley giants over the flow of information. Imagine if Google joins in.

What's so amazing is that they never wanted this role. It was foisted on them by people, led by journalists, demanding they censor: https://t.co/cFBfV97Ylt

— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) October 14, 2020

Congrats to twitter on its Streisand Effect award!!! 👏 👏 👏 pic.twitter.com/xQXqIDqwFT

— Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) October 15, 2020

Want to get back at @Twitter and @Facebook for censoring this story? Post this screenshot of the story and encourage people to see it for themselves at https://t.co/JK8929vegs. pic.twitter.com/oKgDWA2hmA

— Scott Walker (@ScottWalker) October 15, 2020

UPDATED: "Twitter CEO admits handling of blocked Post article was ‘unacceptable’" (NY Post).

A big "Streisand effect" for an otherwise obscure tweet: "Kamala sounds like Marge Simpson."

That's the entire tweet, from a Trump adviser I've never noticed or cared about, Jenna Ellis. But it's a big deal, because anti-Trumpers went big, attacking it. Why does it even matter? People like Marge Simpson, she has a distinctive voice, and somebody noticed a similar quality in Kamala Harris's voice.

The "Simpsons" show itself responded, I'm reading in "Marge Simpson claps back at Trump adviser Jenna Ellis for Kamala Harris dig: I 'feel a little disrespected'" (Fox News).

Here's the show's tweet:

Marge Simpson has something to say. pic.twitter.com/viux96bAPf

— TheSimpsons (@TheSimpsons) August 14, 2020

I guess I should congratulate the show for drawing attention to itself. It's so weird that it's still on the air. Not only is it the longest running scripted prime-time TV show, it has 10 more seasons that the show that's in second place.

I hate the idea that we're not supposed to make fun of Kamala Harris. No one unmockable should be given access to great power. By the way, she herself is always laughing, laughing when nothing is even funny. We're supposed to put up with a person laughing at nothing and also to be banned from laughing at something?! That's not my idea of America. Trump says he'll "make America great again." What's the counteroffer? Make America grim again?

"Facebook’s decision not to remove the video came after it honored a request by Ms. Pelosi’s office and took down a video on Thursday that was doctored to make it appear as though she were swallowing Tide pods."

"The video, which was still posted on Twitter on Saturday, was apparently made by manipulating a 2018 video of Ms. Pelosi sampling chocolates on 'The Late Show With Stephen Colbert.' Facebook said that video violated a policy against showing people eating Tide pods, which it created in 2018, after videos spread on social media encouraging people to bite down on the brightly colored laundry detergent packets."

From "Pelosi Clashes With Facebook and Twitter Over Video Posted by Trump/The video was edited to appear as if Speaker Nancy Pelosi were ripping a copy of President Trump’s State of the Union address while he honored a Tuskegee airman and military families" (NYT).

Big Streisand effect here. The NYT links to the Donald Trump tweet with Pelosi ripping up the SOTU after each of the most moving parts of the speech, encouraging readers to watch a video they have missed, the NYT has directed me to another Pelosi-mocking video — in this case, one that I had missed. They didn't give the link for this but they told me where to find it. Here:

Hey @Twitter can you fact check this for me?

Did Nancy Pelosi really eat tide pods? https://t.co/gx12AVX5F9 pic.twitter.com/sy7wJGQTyP

— Carpe Donktum🔹 (@CarpeDonktum) February 4, 2020

I don't know when Twitter added that "Twitter Safety" bit, but it's interesting that the NYT didn't mention it when it contrasted Twitter and Facebook. I think the Twitter approach of labeling is much better than Facebook's outright censorship. It's important to be able to make comic videos!

This post gets my "Era of That's Not Funny" tag.

Lisa Page talks like Trump.

That's the way things look at The Daily Beast.

For the nearly two years since her name first made the papers, she’s been publicly silent (she did have a closed-door interview with House members in July 2018). I asked her why she was willing to talk now. “Honestly, his demeaning fake orgasm was really the straw that broke the camel’s back,” she says. The president called out her name as he acted out an orgasm in front of thousands of people at a Minneapolis rally on Oct. 11, 2019.

Yes, it was that fake orgasm! That was the last straw! Did he really do that? I had to track down the video myself. Here (I think the "orgasm" is between 1:20 and 1:32):



Anyway, it was the headline that got me. Page is talking like Trump. I did nothing! No crime! But the "orgasm" motivation icing on the cake.

ADDED: Big Streisand effect on that fake orgasm. I had forgotten it, and now I'm watching it over and over and laughing a lot. Maybe Page thinks she can get women stirred up on her behalf, because the fake orgasm was "demeaning." But Trump was imitating Strzok, the man, so let's just see if the men of America take umbrage that Trump did a comical male orgasm.

#YangMediaBlackout.

Wow. It appears my ongoing MSNBC (+now also CNN) mega-thread about Yang coverage has helped spark the hashtag #YangMediaBlackout which is now the 4th highest trending topic nationwide. Way to go #YangGang, and thank you, Streisand Effect! Your move, MSM…https://t.co/7jAji9ubww

— Scott Santens (@scottsantens) August 29, 2019

It's a graphic depiction of exclusion!



But here's why it makes sense to leave Yang off:



The gap between Buttigieg and Yang is big and Yang is almost even with Booker and O'Rourke. Santens's image in the tweet shows the same chart of the polls but cuts it off before the Booker and O'Rourke columns.

"'I will find your a** and cut you!'/OJ Simpson is accused of sending threatening messages to parody account @KillerOJSimpson on Twitter after urging operator to delete it."

A Daily Mail article about this:

C'mon man lmao OJ playin...DM number 2. He about to "cut" me. #OJSimpson 🤣 pic.twitter.com/UX6z3PfBny

— O.J. Simpson🔪 (@KillerOJSimpson) June 17, 2019

A true threat? The parody OJ guy does repeatedly indicate that he finds it funny. He also says he only has about 300 followers, and he's got more than 2,500 now. That is, OJ (assuming that's really OJ) is boosting the visibility of the parody account he's trying to get rid of. Another variation on the Streisand effect.

The Twitter account (used in the messaging) is the account that has been in the news and which has video of OJ talking about how he's going to use Twitter:

Thanks to all my new followers. Love learning how to use Twitter. pic.twitter.com/J4JnN59yKl

— O.J. Simpson (@TheRealOJ32) June 16, 2019

He's trying to seem super-cheerful, but nearly everything he says cuts two ways. Cuts. He wants to hold other people accountable...

Federal judge orders the city of Sibley, Iowa to stop threatening to sue a man who has a webpage saying the city smells bad.

I'd never heard of Sibley, Iowa, and I doubt if I'd have found this website, but now I'm reading it:

We're not just talking an "oh, that was a little stinky" kind of smell. We're talking a rotten blood, stale beer, "I wonder if I should see a doctor after breathing that" wall of fumes. The putrid air seemed to hang over much of the town for 3-4 days every week. It was particularly nasty on hot and humid summer days.

At the time I lived very close to the offending facility. It was absolutely terrible, we couldn't open our windows in the spring, summer or fall thanks to the seemingly malignant stench. Driving down 10th Street would make you instantly regret using your vehicle's air conditioner. And need I mention: the facility is located right down the block from Superfoods, the only grocery store in town.

Great example of the "Streisand effect." Now, the website — titled "Should you move to Sibley, Iowa?" — or news of the lawsuit is likely to come up in searches for Sibley.

Here's the Courthouse News article about the judicial decision, which is also describe a the top of the "Should you move to Sibley" page.

It's worth noting that the plant that emitted stink is gone (as the "Should you move" page says).

How to be "much less self-assured than one might expect."

From Variety, "Barbra Streisand on How She Battled Hollywood’s Boys’ Club":

Spending the day with Streisand at her home overlooking the Pacific Ocean* reveals someone who lives up to her reputation as being much less self-assured than one might expect.** Her chronic stage fright prompts her on several occasions to kick everyone but the photographer out of the rooms where she is being shot. She stage-manages some of the setups and lighting cues, true to the perfectionist that she is. She even reshoots a series of short video interviews to her precise liking: “I know how this should look,” she declares.

Among the residents of that house are 3 Coton de Tulear dogs. 2 of them — Miss Violet and Miss Scarlett — are clones of a dog — Samantha — that died in 2017.

“They have different personalities,” Streisand says. “I’m waiting for them to get older so I can see if they have her brown eyes and her seriousness.”

There's also this about Hillary Clinton:

“I said to her the last time I saw her, ‘You were just too smart.’” In fact, she’s not convinced that Trump beat Clinton. “I really believe she won the election,” Streisand says. “I’ve talked to senators from Michigan and Wisconsin. I do believe, like I believed during Bush, they were playing with those voter machines. And [Al Gore] lost by 537 votes out of 104 million. And now, in retrospect, Bush looks quite good compared to Trump. At least he’s not mean-spirited. He’s not a guy who is retaliating for what Obama did at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner.”

She has a movie theater in that big house, but sometimes she actually goes out to the movies:

“My husband and I like to go to those theaters where you get food,” Streisand says. “They have one in the Valley where they have little spring rolls, great ice-cream sundaes and truffle french fries. You’re there thinking, ‘How many heads were on this thing?’ I feel like I should bring a towel.”

Oh! The common people! With their heads. Ugh! You need a towel to protect yourself from what oozes out of them. At first when I read that, I thought the towel was for the mess she and the husband made with all that ice cream and french fries, but no, it was revulsion at the contamination of the chair backs, even in a place in the Valley where the french fries are truffle french fries. You want us to go out to see your movies, but you're telling us public theaters are disgusting, because of the people. And your movies are about people... yet people disgust you. Why would I want to absorb what you have to say about people... especially if it requires me to sit in a chair that's been sat in by peeeepulll...***

What I love about this is how she means to be a committed lefty, but it's all always so cluelessly intertwined with self-regard and personal entitlement. I mean, look at this:

[Shooting "The Prince of Tides," she] wanted everyone to stay a little late, because [Nick] Nolte was in a head space where she thought he could nail a scene that called for his character to be tired. But the camera operator and the crew banded together and told her they wanted to go home. Nolte took their side (although he called her later that night to apologize). “So I had to walk off the set. It would have literally taken 10 minutes, but they were fucking with me.” The next morning, Nolte needed 17 takes to get it right, because he was too rested. “Today I wouldn’t ask the question,” Streisand says. “I would tell them. And if you don’t want to do it, don’t bother to come back to work tomorrow. I wouldn’t be afraid of that. But then, I was afraid of it.”

A committed lefty would care about labor issues and empathize with the mundane tiredness of the working man. But she was attentive to the tiredness of Nick Nolte, which he could use to play a scene where his character was tired instead of having to do the work of an actor and pretend to be tired. Oh! That was so hard. Took 17 takes. And her regret is that she wasn't self-assured enough to dictate to the crew, and that fucked-with Nolte took their side. Ah, but the weasley little man paid the price: 17 takes it took him to act tired when he was well-rested. Poor (rich) man.
________________________

* It's just by chance that after mentioning the Streisand effect in a post this morning, I've run into a Streisand article that hits my "bloggable" mark, and then there's that reference to the house she didn't want us looking at:


Copyright (C) 2002 Kenneth & Gabrielle Adelman, California Coastal Records Project, www.californiacoastline.org

** A paradox. If it's your reputation than it is what we expect. Or is it even less self-assured than that.

*** People... people...

When WaPo reports on what's in The Daily Mail, it uses a stock photo of a beach in Martinique....

... and you have to click on a link to the Daily Mail to see the closeup of buttocks infested with worms.

The headline at WaPo is "Medical journal’s buttocks photos show up in tabloids. Patients not amused."

Key information: The couple consented to the use of the photographs, and they were warned that there was no way to control whether the "tabloid" press would notice the story in the medical journal and run with it. The Washington Post isn't the tabloid press, because it reported on the controversy and only used a pretty stock photo of a beach not an ugly ass photo.

The couple's name has not been used, but they're afraid there's enough identifying detail — the cruise to Martinique, the name of the hospital back home — that people who know them will figure it out. The damage in the Daily Mail was already done, though, and they created this new story that I'm reading now, about the journal withdrawing the article because they raised a stink. (That's the Streisand effect.) So they're more likely to become famous for their worm-infested ass, and they're also the people who forced the article out of the medical journal where it might help other people.

On the plus side, a lot more of us know of the potential to get worms in your ass by sitting on the beach. The beach in Martinique, you're thinking. No...

When [dogs and cats] defecate on the beach, hookworm larvae can easily migrate through the sand....  [S]ome beaches along the Gulf Coast of the U. S. and the Atlantic seaboard may also be teaming with the parasites.... [W]alking barefoot on contaminated beach may cause the infection. [Dr. Peter Hotez, the dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston] said he speculates that this couple may have sat bare-bottomed on the sand, or the sand may have gotten into their bathing suits.

Hotez needs to take a closer look at women's bathing suits. Decades ago, women decided that the buttock was more or less part of the upper leg and could be completely exposed in the important pursuit of making the legs look longer. A woman sitting on the sand in the most ordinary women's bathing suit — unlike a man in just about any man's bathing suit — is going to have her buttocks in contact with the possibly worm-infested sand.

ADDED: Amazingly, there is also video of the worm coming up out of the sand:

"Here’s something Milo Yiannopoulos probably wasn’t expecting when he filed a lawsuit against Simon & Schuster for breach of contract for canceling the publication of his controversial book...."

"Public mockery of his manuscript and its edits.... On Wednesday, writer Jason Pinter tweeted a screenshot of Simon & Schuster’s rebuttal. And on Thursday, software engineer Sarah Mei, after realizing that the documents filed in the case were now publicly available, paid a visit to the New York county clerk’s website for herself and shared even more scathingly choice editorial nuggets online, to the delight of Twitter....."

So begins "The Most Scathing Editor Comments From Milo Yiannopoulos’ Manuscript" at Slate.

This is a excellent setup for a comic/serious exercise. Instead of hating on Milo (if you hate him) or (more tediously) defending him (if you like him), imagine editorial comments on some other book, some book you think is great.

Many of these editorial comments are more normal than you may realize. For example: "This is definitely not the place for more of your narcissism." I'm certain that the greatest books ever written could have elicited this comment from an editor (and I mean a serious editor who was trying to make the book as good as it could be).

It's too bad Milo didn't stay with his publisher and try to meet the challenges presented by these comments. I have tried to read the rushed-out book he self-published. It's a brainstorm of a rough draft. I scanned it with some thought of blogging it. I don't think I got one blog post out of it, and I tried.

It needed way more work, and I assume he knows that, but he needed to cash in early, and he got his payday. I don't really care, and I think it is indeed funny when a lawsuit lays bare things you'd rather keep hidden. When this phenomenon besets lefties, righties like to say "Streisand effect."

Beating out "1984" as the #1 best-selling book at Amazon — it's Milo Yiannopoulos.

Is this book even written yet? You can only advance-order it. The publication date is March 14th. Here's the link to buy it and simultaneously make a contribution to the Althouse blog (without paying extra).

My son John writes:

The Streisand effect: you attract publicity for what you were trying to conceal

The Milo effect: you get free publicity by rioters and arsonists trying to stop you from speaking, and your book becomes a #1 best-seller before it's released

And at that link, there are people talking about something I was going to bring up earlier this morning when I was writing a post about Robert Reich's floating the rumor that the Milo protesters were actually right-wingers. If we see that Milo benefits, it makes sense to explore the possibility that the protesters were pro-Milo. I don't believe that. I think the protesters are just very bad at understanding the consequences of their behavior (or they just don't care).

ADDED: "Dangerous" may have been #1 at some earlier point. At Breitbart, I'm seeing: "The book is now back at the top of Amazon’s rankings, holding the #1 best seller spot for books." Key word: "back." But the cause-and-effect of the protests is plain:

Pre-order sales of Breitbart Senior Editor MILO’s upcoming book Dangerous increased by 12,740% following the violent left-wing and “anti-fascist” riot that occurred at UC Berkeley on Wednesday in protest of a scheduled speech by MILO on campus.